Hello Barbie!

Yesterday, Summer's OT visited her at school.  She always has a cute story to tell me and great report:

Hi Tammy,  I completed a note that will be coming home with your little one who informed me, as I said good-bye to her using her given name, that I should (or perhaps it was that I have to) call her Barbie! That made me laugh. Then her EA informed me that your “Barbie” is also referring to Don as “Ken”. All I have to say to that is “What would Freud say about that?” Your “Barbie” sure can put a smile on my face!!!  (Recently, 'Barbie' is interchangeable with 'Puppy', at least 'Barbie' doesn't bark!)

The visit went well!  “Barbie” scored slightly below average on the subtest that looks at the ability to copy progressively more difficulty forms mostly because she is not yet consistently able to copy diagonals (separately or within other forms): /, \, X, Δ. She was able to imitate these forms when I drew each one and provided some extra verbal cues. She was well within normal limits with the visual perception testing I did which looks at visual discrimination. She scored slightly below average on the subtest that looks at pencil control. Two reasons that I noted for the difficulty with pencil control are:

i) she tends to wrap her thumb around the pencil shaft so she won’t have the same ease of movement she would have if she held the writing tools with the tip of her thumb opposite the tip of her index finger and

ii) it is hard for her to use her right hand effectively to stabilize the page so often the page moves on her.

I spoke her EA about trying “Barbie” with a clip board to hold her pages/workbooks for her. She will locate one to try in class.

I will try a couple different pencil grips with “Barbie” to see if we can get a better position for her thumb.  I noticed “Barbie” using a grasp much like the thumb wrap grasp. Now I also have to let you know that what is listed here as an “Inefficient Grasp Pattern” does not necessarily mean that the person with such a grasp will have significant issues with printing/handwriting; there are lots of people who have functional printing/writing despite using what this handout terms “Inefficient Grasp Patterns”. Next time you are in a meeting and people are doodling or taking notes check out the various grasping patterns. (Sounds like she will inherit my penmanship - MESSY!)

I will see “Barbie” for 3 visits next month to work on the diagonal pencil strokes and pencil control. I am not particularly concerned about these skills. I have scheduled these visits because the best way for me to see if this is something we need to be concerned about is to try out some different approaches and see what kind of progress she makes.